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Copy 2 GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES. 






SPEECH 



OP 



HON. JOHN A. KASSON, 



OF IOWA, 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



Monday, August 14, 1876. 



as. a. 



'WASHING-TON. 

1876. 



o 80 



SPEECH 

OF 

HON. JOHN A. KASSON. 

The House having nnder consideration the state of the Union- 
Mr I^ea S k°er : S If d all the parliamentary inquiries of gentlemen have 
been answered, I will once more endeavor to proceed with what I 

ha Mv t ho 3 nmahle friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Randall] made an 

?,-ip.ifl from Ohio TMr. Foster] with counter-tables ot correct, ngiues 
and letter ma henmtTcs. I do not propose to go into the mathematical 

you arrange your figures as to what they will make I think I may 
sav without doing any injustice to the gentleman, that one 2 wasput 
aftei the other 2, instead of under it, in many places by my honoia- 

Kto Ia ft £SS MSSfc-. — he^^ed^sire 
tW ere Ion* we might have an Executive who would be in narmony 
wifh hfs siaeTf the°House, and he promised great ; things mto .way 
of reform should such an Executive be elected Avaihng myselt ot 
the accustomed liberty of debate on a motion of £»^£g™?%. 
' w as brierlv as I may, to inquire which ot the two P*™^. nav „ ", 
S a cai dilate for Chief Executive of the country who if elected, 
would be "most likely to gratify the people in their aspirations for an 

nTilffiiS whXrtt randhSt^upported by my honorable 
frieS from Pennr y lvaniaisthat Executive by whom the people may 
Spect their hones* aspirations to be realized? Who is SamuelJ. 
Tilden, and what is his record ? 

" THE CANDIDATE IS THE PLATFORM." 

Prior to his nomination at SaintLouiswe often heard Rephrase that 
« the candidate will be the platform." Is the democracy of th s 
Hote and of the country willing to accept that maxim and apply it 

'^'niYnofslfthat during the last few years, since 1860, this Gov- 
ernment has Seen partially°remodeled. The masses ot the northern 



people have become possessed of new desires and new principles ; 
and those principles yet remain deeply ingrained in their hearts, as 
deeply, I trust, as they were at the time Ohio gave 100,000 majority 
against a colleague of Mr. Tilden in the convention at Chicago in 
1864— Mr. Vallandigham, of Ohio. 

What, then, has been the record of Mr. Tilden in respect to the issues 
which will be presented to the people of this country in the course 
of the pending canvass ? What was his position in 1860 touching the 
fundamental doctrine upon which the battles for the Union were 
fought, the perpetual unity of the nation, for which on our side so 
many hundred thousands of men shed their blood or laid down their 
lives ? Was Mr. Tilden in harmony with the Union sentiment of the 
country? Was he in harmony with the sentiment of the country 
which sustained the war ? Did he urge the people to sustain the 
Union ? Did he urge the rilling of our armies? Did he censure the 
secession movement out of which the war grew ? Is he anywhere or 
anyhow upon the record as the strong friend of the Union in its time 
of danger? 

MR. TILDEN AS A SECESSIONIST. 

In 1860 Mr. Tilden wrote a letter, under date of October 12, to Hon. 
William Kent, then a democratic elector for the State of New York, 
in which he said : 

The masters of political science who constructed our system preserved the State 
governments as bulwarks for the freedom of individuals and localities against op- 
pression from centralized power. They recognized no right of constitutional seces- 
sion ; but they left revolution organized when it should be demanded by the public opinio7i 
of a State ; left it with power 'to snap the tie of confederation as a nation might break 
a treaty, and to repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion. They caused us to 
depend in a great measure upon the public opinion of the States in order to maintain 
a confederated Union. 

Again he said : 

Especially is this true of a compact of confederation between the States, where 
there can be no common arbiter invested with authorities aud powers equally ca- 
pable with those which courts possess between individuals for determining and 
enforcing a just construction and execution of the instrument. 

Here, then, in 1860 we find upon the written record of Mr. Tilden a 
declaration that this was a confederation of States instead of a Union ; 
that the States by their own action could " snap the tie." After that, 
in 1860 and 1861, the South acted upon his declaration of doctrine and 
proceeded to "snap the tie," supported clearly by the doctrines then 
enunciated by Samuel J. Tilden, whom they now seek to make Pres- 
ident of the United States and of the restored Union. Calhoun was 
not stronger nor Buchanan weaker than this. It was the identical 
doctrine adopted by Buchanan when he denied the power to coerce 
the rebellious States, and left them to orgauize armies and batter 
down the walls of our forts. Nobody claimed the right to secede by 
the terms of the Constitution. They only claimed that the Constitu- 
tion " left " them with such a right. 

MK. TILDEN AS AN OPPONENT OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION IN 1863. 

Again, Mr. Speaker, in February, 1863, we once more hear from 
Mr. Tilden upon these doctrines that connect themselves with the 
question of the Union. There was a conference called at Delmonico's, 
in the city of New York, and of that conference Mr. Tilden was a 
member. The members of it were all known throughout the war as 
copperheads. In that conference in February, 1863, they organized 
a Society for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge. I myself re- 
ceived month after month the issues of that society, of which Mr. 
Tilden was one of the organizers and members. In their declarations 



5 



and the influence ^L"f^£Sw „rgSW in February, 1863, 
minds of gentlemen *•*«"■ ,T ter w»rd "their publication, was tol- 
SiS^SSttSSaftSySS In the P cit, of New York in 

a -lS=!oo^ 

"f^S^Sle gfnkemafl a,low me a tfU*. I 
3? SSb"'^"^ I understand the gentleman to 8 ay 

perhead and all discouraging to the war. is trie gen 
8W Mr e< lpRINGER. No, sir. Does the gentleman say that Governor 

SSffcJaS SJS or «?S£j S& r ^tntld 

[L Mv g ^PRINGER Pli 'The lentleman will not assert and does not assert 
auddare S assent that Governor Tilden was ever a secessionist or 

Cl Mr KASSON. I dare assert exactly what I have asserted, and let 

VSffiErl^iSi and every man will deny it who 
hn^ws^nySfaboutthJhfstory of the country. [Applause on the 
democratic side.] , 

acting. [Applause.] 



6 

T The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair cannot consent to the con- 
tinuance of these demonstrations of applause or dissent upon the 
floor of the House. They are unparliamentary; and the Chair hopes 
they will not be repeated. 

A Member. They came from the galleries. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. If repeated in the galleries, the gal- 
leries will be cleared. The gentleman from Iowa will proceed in 
order ; and gentlemen upon the floor will not interrupt him without 
his consent. 

Mr. K ASSON. And at another time I was taking care of the records 
of this Government, which were threatened by men coming over from 
Virginia to take possession of the city of Washington and haul down 
the Union flag and trample it under their feet, as they recently did in 
the State of Virginia and in one or two other States of this Union on 
the 4th of July last. That is the work which some of us were engaged 
in ; while others, more fortunate perhaps in obtaining honors, were 
gallantly fighting the enemy at the front with Rutherford B. Hayes. 

MR. TILDEN IN 1864 DECLARING THE WAR A FAILURE. 

Now where was Governor Tilden in 1864 when the convention met 
that nominated McClellan? He was at the convention at Chicago 
with Vallandigham, representing the State of New York upon the 
committee on resolutions, a member of the committee on the plat- 
form which declared this war to have been a failure. Let me give 
the exact words. I send them to the Clerk's desk and ask to have 
read the resolution then adopted and it will show where Governor 
Tilden was in 1864, following out the theory upon which he acted in 
1860 and 1863. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the Amer- 
ican people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment 
of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity or war power 
higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every 
part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material 
prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the 
public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, 
with a view to an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to 
the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the 
basis of the Federal States. 

Mr. KASSON. Thus, Mr. Speaker, you find him uniting in report- 
ing from the committee on the platform that resolution declaring the 
war a failure, assailing the government of Mr. Lincoln, denouncing 
the administration for the manner in which they were carrying on 
the war, and asking the American people to condemn it, as they are 
going to ask them again in November next, but with a result in the 
former case well known in the history of this country. The people 
put their foot upon the platform. They put their foot upon the men 
who stood upon the platform ; and they will put their foot, as long 
as loyalty to the Union and Constitution is respected, upon the men 
who have not changed their faith, but still dare to come before them 
and ask their suffrages. 

Mr. HEREFORD. Let me ask the gentleman from Iowa whether 
the people put their foot upon General McClellan who headed their 
Army ? 

Mr. HEWITT, of New York. Let me ask the gentleman from Iowa 
a question. 

Mr. KASSON. If the gentleman from New York says any fact I 
have stated is not correct I will yield to him. 

Mr. HEWITT, of New York. I ask whether the gentleman from 



Iowa does not know as a matter of fact that Governor Tilden as a 
member of that committee voted against that resolution. 

Mr. KASSON. I will answer the gentleman that as far as the record 
goes I know the contrary. Mr. Guthrie, who was on that committee, 
stated, in speaking of their not being ready, that it was in the hands 
of a subcommittee for revision, but the general committee were unani- 
mous in their views. Mr. Tilden followed Mr. Guthrie in the declara- 
tion, "I wish to add that upon the adjournment of the general com- 
mittee there was no dissent among the members." That is my answer 
to the gentleman from New York. 

Mr. HEWITT, of New York. Governor Tilden voted against that 
esolution. 

Mr. KASSON. Further evidence publicly given of Mr. Tilden's 
concurrence appears in the published reports of that convention: 

Mr. Brown, of Delaware, one of the committee, said : 

There is not the slightest dissension among us. "We have heen a unit from the 
first. 

Mr. Weller, of California, said : 

The subcommittee have agreed upon the only portion of the platform which by 
any possibility can divide this party. We are all in favor of peace, and the only 
difference of opinion is as to the phraseology to be used in making that declaration. 

Mr. Smith, of Wisconsin, added to the general testimony upon this 
point, as follows : 

There is no difference in the committee except upon mere matters of expression. 

Mr. McKeon, of New York, explained the cause of delay as origi- 
nating with Mr. Vallandigham, who wanted the language of the reso- 
lution changed, not because it was too strong, but because it was 
not strong enough to suit him. Finally the resolution was reported 
from the subcommittee to the committee, and from the committee to 
the convention, and was adopted without the dissent of a single 
member of the committee openly expressed in convention. 

As to the platform adopted, there is no power unless they raise the 
dead, who are Guthrie and Vallandigham ; no power that^is able to 
prove the contrary of the unpatriotic record. 

The further proof I cite is this : that when it was presented to the 
convention not a syllable of dissent was expressed by Tilden, who 
was a member of that committee when it came before the conven- 
tion. And now shall gentlemen go into the secret operations of the 
committee, unknown to the public, against this evidence, and say he 
dissented from it in committee ? Why if he loved the Union did he 
not rise like a man who loved his country and dared to hold a pa- 
triotic opinion, why did he not rise when it came into the convention 
and say, " I cannot accept that insult to the Army and to this coun- 
try ? The gallant soldiers at the front are fighting in the hope that 
the people behind them will sustain them. I will not support that 
clause of the platform, and I will not support the man who stands 
upon it." Shall I answer why he did not do it ? Because of his doc- 
trines of I860 and 1863. Because he dared not oppose southern sym- 
pathizers. Because, as a politician, he inherits the compromising, 
evasive character of Martin Van Buren. I suppose 10,000 men in 
this country when they read his letter of acceptance said, "Martin 
Van Buren over again." Words to disguise thoughts, phrases to dis- 
guise principles, sentences with a double meaning, and he had not 
the courage to avow in the open convention the opinion, if he ever 
entertained it, which is attributed to him by my honorable friend 
from New York. 



8 

MB. TILDEN'S RECORD OF WHAT HE DID NOT DO FOR THE UNION. 

Here in 18(30, in 1863, and in 1864, we have the positive record of 
the position of Governor Tilden on these fundamental questions. The 
negative record is more convincing still. Where is the speech he 
made in the great city of New York to support the war ? Where is 
the speech he made to encourage the soldier ? Where is the speech 
he made to sustain the government of Mr. Lincoln in the days of its 
trials ? Where is the speech he made to denounce the attempt of 
foreign governments to aid in the breaking up of this Union ? 

Where is the voice, I ask gentlemen on both sides of the House, 
and I will ask the whole country through this House, where is the 
voice shown by any record that that gentleman ever uttered for his 
country in the time of its peril ? (A pause.) Nobody replies. 

Mr. HOUSE rose. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Iowa yield 
to the gentleman from Tennessee ? 

Mr. KASSON. If he rises to produce a public declaration of Gov- 
ernor Tilden in support of the w T ar for the Union, I yield to him. 

Mr. HOUSE. I want to ask the gentleman a question in regard to 
what he has just had read. 

Mr. KASSON. Do you propose to give me that information ? 

Mr. HOUSE. I am asking the gentleman to give me some infor- 
mation. 

Mr. KASSON. I have already given you a great deal, aud I will 
give you more if you will be seated. 

Mr. HOUSE. I only desire to say 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Iowa declines to 
be interrupted. 

Mr. KASSON. This is his record, positive and negative, during the 
war for the Union which closed in 1865. I might stop here and ask 
any soldier in the United States whom he urged to go to the war to 
vote for him. I might ask the relatives of any dead soldier whom he 
comforted for their loss and encouraged with the hope that the sac- 
rifice was for the preservation of the Union to vote for him. I might 
call upon the fund to answer for him to which he ever personally 
contributed for the like purposes. But, Mr. Speaker, the positive and 
negative evidence, considered separately or together, is ample to main- 
tain the proposition I have made, that his principles, his heart, and 
his action were not with the effort to save the Union ; that neither 
his judgment nor his heart was with the soldiers who fought for the 
Union, and that no man who ever wore the blue can come to the 
polls and cast his vote for him without reflecting upon the memory 
of the dead who died for that cause. 

Mr. Speaker, I search this question so particularly because I main- 
tain that deep down in the hearts of the people of the Union States, 
the war democrats as well as the republicans, there is a deep and 
affectionate regard for the men who helped them in the time of trou- 
ble and of peril ; and a deep and lasting censure for the men who 
withheld their hand, their voice, their heart, their vote from the good 
cause for which they fought and for which so many perished. It is 
a profound and honorable instinct of patriotism, which ought to be 
maintained for the security of the nation in the future as well as a 
grateful recognition of patriotic action in the past. 

MR. TILDEN AS A "REFORMER." 

Now, sir, I ask what is the record of this same gentleman as a " re- 
former" that should lead my honorable friend from Pennsylvania to 



9 



offer his prayer and .^ration that ^rfg*. hjf »*?«*»$£ 
work in harmony with him » ^^"J^Stain.^Stioil asso- 

Clerk to read it. 
The Clerk read as follows ; 

[Private and strictly confidential.] 

BOOMS OF UEMOCKAT1C STATE g™E, g ^ 

Mv Deah Sm: Please at ^Sg*^£^^ttJ*^ 
or four principal towna and £^*1°J/^S$ Tweed, Tammany Hall, at 

skew ss tfpSJjsssa ** *■ — ** **« estimat * 

of the vote. 
Let the telegraph be aa follows : j. f (umnber :) or 

^ T »^fe <« *■**•« 

"S^ourse y^P^^^ 

mission at the hour of ^f»>S ^1 n thV eh " -^ ^co^nuni^tio! '« ov,-r lines be- 
bc taken of the usual half -^^M "3be?ore the Associated Press absorb 
^eleSr^th r^^s^inielfelc wUh individual messa.es , and gl ve orders 
to watch carefully the count. 

Very truly, yours, SAMUEL J. TILDEN, Chairman. 

Tvr,- irA^OTC "An important object is to he attained" - 
Mr. ClImM. fiX gentleman allow me to interrupt him a 
moment? , 

Sr^fS ^STlKTSilJ*. Does he not know that 
M %den hi pronounced this circular to be without hi. a u hon > 
And does he not know that he has said solemnly that he had ne>ei 

ri «^J^r?d?hSffl?t^owL facts about it which 
I stumtfafwiliing toTaS, and intended to state without a ciues- 

tl0 Mr b Si? ' Does ^gentleman not know that that is a forg- 
er^that Mr ?hden never authorized it to he issued, and never saw 

Xt if 1 ?! K 1S I understand that question distinctly, and I am glad 

alonw with that falsehood. __ • 

M KASSON. I do not yield for that purpose. 



10 

Mr. COX. Of course not. 

Mr. KASSON. I have learned how to appreciate all these private 
suggestions 

Mr. COX. I desire to have it in the Record. 

Mr. KASSON. That does not go into my speech till I know what 
it is. 

Mr. CLYMER. It ought to go into the gentleman's speech. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Iowa must not 
he interrupted except with his own permission. 

Mr. COX. Of course not ; I am not interrupting him. 

Mr. KASSON. The course pursued hy gentlemen on the other side 
of the House is exactly characteristic of their leader, Governor Til- 
den. They evade responsibility for action hy disclaiming words. 
There was no time prior to 1873 or prior to the exposure of Tweed, 
so far as I know, that Governor Tilden ever came out with this dis- 
claimer. 

Mr. CLYMER. In 18G8 he did it. 

Mr. KASSON. That was when the governorship had been already 
stolen from the people of the State by this gigantic fraud which 
startled two continents and put the democratic governor into the 
gubernatorial chair of New York, to the exclusion of Griswold and 
as successor of Governor Dix; a fraud perpetrated at least by some of 
the committee of which he was chairman : 

Now there is one witness whom I quote against all the private let- 
ters and all the private adherents of Mr. Tilden, because his character 
has been indorsed by the democrats of the whole country for the high 
office of the Presidency of the United States. Horace Greeley said 
this to Mr. Tilden on the very point we are now discussing : 

You hold a most responsible and influential position in the counsels of a great 
party- You could make that party content itself with polling legal votes if you only 
would. In our late constitutional convention I tried to erect some fresh barriers 
against election frauds. Did you ? The very little that I was enabled to effect in 
this direction I shall try to have ratified by the people at our ensuing election. Will 
you ? Mr. Tilden. you cannot escape responsibility by saying with the guilty Mac- 
beth: 

" Thou canst not say I did it : never shake 
Thy gory locks at me," 

for you were at least a passive accomplice in the giant frauds of last November. 

But, says the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Cox,] Mr. Tilden in 
1868 did say, "Thou canst not say I did it," and shook his gory locks 
after the fact accomplished and the fruits realized ; but Mr. Greeley 
warns him against that very thing, and gives this reason for it : 

Tour name was used, without public protest on your part, in circulars sowed 
broadcast over the State, whereof the manifest intent was to "make assurance 
double sure " that the frauds here perpetrated should not be overborne by the 
honest vote of the rural districts. And you, not merely by silence, but by positive 
assumption, have covered those frauds with the mantle of your responsibility. 

On the principle that " the receiver is as bad as the thief," you are as deeply impli- 
cated in them to-day as though your name was Tweed, O'Brien, or Oakey MaU. 

Mr. Greeley's real opinion of Mr. Tilden's excuses and of his relation 
to the fraud appears further and very plainly in this additional ex- 
tract from that historical denunciation of election fraud : 

On one very important point, however, your bitterness as a partisan has impelled 
von to ignore and come short of your duties as a citizen and a professed upholder 
of government by the people, and for this dereliction I here arraign you. I allude 
to the preservation of the purity of the ballot-box. 

I can imagine how a man may shut bis eyes to many things which he deems it 
convenient not to know ; but I must speak of what you must know, however you may 
wish to seek to be ignorant of it. 



11 

Now I put the evidence of that great and honest man, for whom 
Mr. Tilden himself voted in the last presidential campaign, against 
any evidence that the gentleman from New York may produce. This 
was the testimony of a man npon the spot who had been nearly forty 
years side by side with Mr. Tilden, who knew his character and all 
the facts as well as any member from New York upon this floor, and 
ho pronounced that Mr. Tilden must have known the scheme of fraud, 
and that he was a " passive accomplice " in the frauds ; and further 
tells him he could have stopped them if he chose. Now is that 
the kind of reformer to place in the presidential chair ? A man who 
was one of the executive officers of that committee and sat on the 
committee with Mr. Tilden, and signed Mr. Tilden's name, as it is 
claimed, to this circular without his consent ; aud yet Governor Til- 
den did not denounce it, nor reject the benefits of it, and gave no 
light to disclose the frauds so that the perpetrators might be pun- 
ished, and the man who had been truly elected might be seated, a 
man who was as truly entitled to his seat as any member here is en- 
titled to a seat on this floor. 

Mr. CLYMER. Will the geutleman allow me to ask him a ques- 
tion ? 

Mr. KASSON. I cannot yield at this point. 

Mr. CLYMER. He declines to hear the truth. 

Mr. KASSON. I am repeating the truth, and that is what hurts. 
Whenever you touch his history prior to the disclosures in the New 
York Times of the Tweed ring and of their frauds, you touch that or- 
ganization of which Mr. Tilden was an active member on the execu- 
tive committee or as a member of the Tammany ring. Such is his 
history as a "reformer" in respect to the purity of elections. 

MR. TILDEX IX COXXECTIOX WITH RAILROADS. 

But that is not all. Sir, we have some further evidence touching 
his qualities as a " reformer." We have had many railroad questions 
before this House. We have investigated them, and we have been 
endeavoring to settle them on a principle that would protect the peo- 
ple and the Government of the United States. 

It will be claimed that if Mr. Tilden is elected he will reform the 
legislation of the country in respect to the railroad system. I am 
frank to admit that he has considerable knowledge of the disposition 
to be made of a bankrupt railroad, and a knowledge of the manipu- 
lation of railroads, which gives him a practical idea as to the things 
to be amended and reformed. But that history is such a one as will 
not give the people of the country confidence in his disposition to re- 
form them in the public interest. Among various railroad corpora- 
tions investigated in this House was one which was called the Credit 
Mobilier a corporation connected with the railroad which was charged 
with having defrauded the Government of the United States by im- 
proper contracts made with themselves under the name of the Credit 
Mobilier and with plundering the Government of the United States 
of many millions of money. We took evidence in that investigation 
before a committee of the House. I give the following questions 
and answers from the record of this House in the examination of 
Mr. Oakes Ames : 

Mr. Hoar. "Were you not informed by the counsel who drew the contract that 
this was a violation of law ? 

Mr. Ames. "We were informed by counsel whom we consulted that this issuing 
of stock (to the C. M.) as a payment upon the contract for building the road was in 
entire compliance with the law. 

Question. Who were the counsel that gave you that advice ? 



12 

Answer. Mr. Samuel J. Tildes, Mr. Charles Tracy, and Judge Allen.. 
Q. All of New York ? 
A. All of New York. 

Again, Mr. John B. Alley put upon the stand and examined. I 
quote from his testimony : 

Question. And farther, I understood you to say that you were instructed hy 
eminent counsel, upon whose adyice you relied, that the course you took was a 
compliance with the law ? 

Answer. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have you ever seen, or do you know whether that opinion of eminent counsel 
is in existence now in writing ? 

A. I do not know. I do not know whether it was given in writing. 

Q. Was it given to you by these eminent counsel > 

A. Mr. Tildes, I know, told me that he regarded it as a compliance with the law. 

There, sir, you have a record of this House proving that this "re- 
former" was one of the counsel who advised the very thing that has 
shocked the whole country with the enormities of the wrong and the 
extent of the rohbery involved in it. What would you not have said 
of him had he been the republican candidate for the Presidency? 
How you would have investigated him, what committee reports you 
would have supplied, and what inquiries into his stocks and bonds 
and bank account! And yet we are asked to believe, the country is 
asked to believe, that Mr. Tilden is to purify this Government and to 
restore it to the purity of our fathers. 

It is not necessary for me to proceed much further in this direc- 
tion, for the simple reason that Mr. Tilden is so well known, particu- 
larly to the people of the West, if not to the people of the whole 
country, in his relation to railroads, that I need not further detail 
the evidence. Mr. Tilden has spent nearly his whole life in the city 
of New York ; he has made nearly all his fortune in stock operations 
centered in that city and iu connection with railroads. I do not 
allude to the question of his fortune, said to be so very large, except 
as it is involved in this exhibition of his relation to railroads, of which 
the journals of the country have been full, and which has an inter- 
est for the public in view of possible legislation touching railroads 
and their subsidies of laud and money. 

This, however, I will say, that the farmers of the West, the people 
of our villages, the people who believe in the characteristic disregard 
of the people's interest by the speculative rings of Wall street, will 
not accept for their candidate for the high office of President a man 
whose education upon these subjects has been almost exclusively re- 
ceived in Wall street, and who has had no relation with the interests 
of the great masses of the people of this country and no sympathy 
with them. 

TAKING HONORS WHICH BELONG TO GOVERNOR DIX. 

One word upon his relation to the State government of New York 
as exhibited by himself. He claims to be a reformer in another re- 
spect, which I think is inconsistent with his honor as a public officer. 
Governor Dix, during his term of office, found that the sinking fund 
of the State of New York had been depleted by his democratic pred- 
ecessors to the extent of many millions of dollars in order to save 
themselves from the responsibility of taxing the people for their ex- 
travagant expenditure. Governor Dix replaced that entire sinking 
fund and paid off a large amount of public debt, as the fruit of the 
taxation and economies practiced during his term of office. Gover- 
nor Tilden has since made a speech in regard to the reduction of the 
public debt of that State and of the taxes — a reduction which his 
republican predecessor had brought about by the purity, economy, 



13 



?est8 upon his movement against the canal ring, in whicn, nowevei, 
he has stopped with the conviction of a single offender. 

THE RESULT OF THIS INVESTIGATION. 

T have now shown Mr.Tilden's relation to the doctrines of secession, 

mmmmm 

^S Candidate represent the aspirations of the Union-loving 
and reform-loving people of the United States? 

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, THE REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLICAN. 

Whom have the republicans presented to oppose him 1 Aoca law- 

• %°etaSulttr whom we »*k the vote, of the men who fooght 

bCdim? froseTn his pain and rushed forward to save his command 

S noblest Spartan whoever tonght in ,Aa ani-a let e ^ated m 
to be scalped," and signed and sent it. 



14 

No man doubts his position in respect to the war ; no man doubts 
his courage, his discretion, his devotion to his country. No widow 
mourning for the loss of her husband can hesitate to ask her son to 
vote for the man who fought on the same field, for the same cause, and 
endured the same deprivations and dangers. No orphan now grown 
up and old enough to cast his vote for the Union his father helped to 
save, can hesitate as to the man he should vote for to secure the great 
rights preserved by the war and the perpetuity of the Union. 

And, sir, he is equally acceptable to the country in its aspirations 
for reform. I have known him and served with him on this floor. 
Show me, if you can, where ever a corrupt thing was done by him or 
encouraged by him. Show me his advice to a Credit Mobilier job at 
the expense of the Government. Show me the William M. Tweed of 
whom he ever solicited $5,000 for a corrupt election fund. Show me 
the William M. Tweed with whom he ever associated on a campaign 
committee. Show me the Vallandigham with whom he ever pat in 
council to draw up the platform of principles upon which a political 
campaign was to be fought and a nation saved. Show me the man, 
enemy of his country or corruptionist in his country, with whom 
Rutherford B. Hayes was ever an intimate associate ! 

THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES. 

And if you look at those associated with these candidates on the 
same ticket, you will see how inconsistent the nominee of the demo- 
cratic party is with the platform which they have adopted. For 
instance, they denounce the republican party for granting the public 
lands to aid in the building of railroads, a " waste " they call it of the 
public domain and demand reform in it, and then they nominate Mr. 
Hendricks as their candidate for Vice-President, who turns around 
and accepts the situation confidingly. Our own republican conven- 
tion had already denounced the system, and had put a stop to it by 
legislation in the interest of actual settlers. Yet when Mr. Hendricks 
was a Senator of the United States he rose in his place in 1864 to ad- 
vocate the land grant (one of the most enormous ever made, I think 
37,000,000 acres) for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He said : 

The bill before the Senate proposes to encourage the construction of a very im- 
portant railroad to connect the waters of Lake Superior with the waters of the Pa- 
cific Ocean. Everybody can see at a glance that it is a work of national importance. 
It proposes to grant lands in a northern latitude, where without the construction 
of a work like that the lands are comparatively without value to the Government. 
Xo person acquainted with the condition of that section of the country supposes that 
there can be very extensive settlements until the Government shall encourage 
those settlements by the construction of some work like this. I do not think that 
a work of such national importance ought to be embarrassed in its passage through 
this body and through the House of Representatives by amendments proposing 
works that are comparatively local. 

Again, in 1868, he said : 

!Now, sir, this is a great work. It can be accomplished with the aid of the laud 
giant ; it is one of the greatest achievements this country has ever contemplated. 
* * * But all that is proposed to this road is to give it lands that are to-day not 
worth one cent per acre to the Government. There is not a Senator here who 
would give for that vast region of country, unaided by some work of this sort, one 
cent per acre. Senators forget what it is' that gives value to the public lands. 

Again, in respect to the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad grant 
he said in debate : 

It was constructed in part by the Government of the United States. As a mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives, a number of years ago, I felt it to be my duty 
to vote in favor of a land giant to enable the State of Missouri to build that very 
important road. 

I also refer to the Senate debates of 1864 for his liberality in land 
grants, and especially to the Bayfield and Saint Croix Railroad. 



15 



Tf vou look to the democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 
reference to his loyalty to the Union and his relatione j to secession, 
von find him in 1864, after his election to the Senate making-a speech 
irsevmou™ in Indiana, in which he so mildly spoke of the errors of 
?LsErs who deserted that he was cheered by the men around 
Sm who had sheltered the deserters in their midst, and spoke so 
Sv^relv of the men who should come to arrest them and take them 
hack to the Smy that the whole audience burst out into a roar of 

aP That S meetin2 was called by a remarkable paper, which probably 
nJst of you K seen, which invited « all who favored peace who 
desired to be free from the death-grip of this infamously wicked, im- 
becile and tyrannical administration, its arbitrary and illegal arrests 
Hs drafts and conscription laws, by which peaceful citizens are 
taS from tS homes and all the endearments of domestic life 
to butcher a^d be butchered "-inviting all these to "come out and 
heitto advocate of peace and reunion;" and that advocacy was 
mnflp in the manner I have stated. . , 

So Mr Speaker, in respect to the constitutional amendments which 
the natmn secured at such cost and holds so dear, he always voted m 
the nWtiv * We are asked to elect to administer the Constitution 
as amended the very man who voted against and opposed every one of 
ftoTamendments Ind who is still bitterly hostile to them m pnn- 

d Mr LANDERS, of Indiana. Has the gentleman before him the 
sneech of Governor Hendricks to which he has referred? 
P Mr KASSON. Yes, sir, I have that speech ; not at full length, but 
vefy interesting parts, in which in a manner not precisely peaceful he 
Smmended that the men who came to arrest dese rters s Uonldmeet 
an un welcome reception. I cannot stop to read it. I will refer tne 
gent?emaS to aimo!t any of the newspapers, particularly the Chicago 
Tribune and other papers in which I have seen it. 
This is the record of Governor Hendricks in respect to these ques- 



tions. 



Onthe other hand, we have nominated for Vice-President Wiixiam 
A Wheeler of New York, a man with whom many of us have stood 
here tor year's side by side against whom a corrupt thing was never 
charged to whom a disloyal sentiment was never attributed ; a man 
atvlrVoachandfearleLfortheright, and who has been one of the 
most admirable presiding officers we have everhadin the chair, either 

P6 i r ^aTa^a'eSaidatee particularly and their -cords be- 
cause I earnestly believe that there is great import m the declaration 
which we heard before the nominations, that this year the candidate 

W Mr d CLYM£R a ' f T would like to ask the gentleman a question. 
How'does Mr. Wheeler's record in reference to railroad grants com- 
pare with that of Mr. Hendricks ? , . 
P Mr KASSON. I have not examined it, and remember no speech of 
hifaboiit it I think that in some cases he may have voted tor grants 
but generally Mr. Wheeler was more prudent and careful than Mi. 

H Mr dr CLYMER. Mr. Wheeler voted for everything of that kind 
Mr KASSON. I have no doubt that in the old times, before the 
evil of tWs system bad developed, Mr. Wheeler, like Douglas, may 
hive voted for some of the land grants. ^^TZlTioZevK 
the democrats have ; we have not denounced the men who formerly 



16 

voted for laud grants and then nominated one of thein on that plat- 
form. 

Mr. CEYMER. You are for them all the time. 

Mr. KASSON. The gentleman knows that I am not. 

Mr. CLYMEE. I mean your party. 

Mr. KASSON. Our party has long since declared against them, as 
the gentleman and every one else knows, and the grants are stopped. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, if the candidates are the platform, for which of 
these should the votes of Union men and reformers be cast ? 

Mr. SPRINGER. For Tilden and Hendricks. 

Mr. KASSON. I think a weak voice said, "For Tilden and Hen- 
dricks ;" a weak voice, and but a single voice. The question is to be 
put to the country ; and there we are perfectly content to leave it. 

Mr. SPRINGER. So are we. 

Mr. KASSON. The time has not come when the people of the 
United States have forgotten the experience of the last fifteen years 
and the fruits of the war, which even the southern gentlemen on this 
floor say they do not desire to disturb. We have not forgotten the 
records of public men during that war ; and until the waters of Lethe 
flow over our minds we shall not forget to sustain the men who have 
been true to their country and oppose the men who in the time of 
peril have faltered or gone back from their duty to their country. 

When these questions of fidelity to cause and country are put to 
the people you may attempt to rally them under party cries ; you 
may sound the bugle-call and promise the rewards of office ; but gen- 
tlemen must not forget that there is deep down in the hearts of the 
North and of the patriotic men of the border States a feeling that 
they must intrust the Constitution as it now exists and the Union as 
now restored to the men who have maintained it and stood by it 
from the beginning to the end. 

THE SOUTHERN QUESTION. 

I should perhaps neglect my duty if, for a single moment, I did 
not speak of another political difference. I have taken no part hith- 
erto in the debates upon the so-called southern question. Let me, 
before I sit down, say a few frank words to the democrats of the 
Southern States. 

We are not, as they charge, desirous to control the Southern States 
in their domestic affairs. We are not desirous to have incompetent 
or dishonest men elected to office because they call themselves re- 
publicans. If, when you speak of " carpet-baggers," you speak of 
men who have no interest in the South, who own no land there, who 
were not born there and have gone there not to exercise any lawful 
calling or profession, but to speculate upon office, we condemn them as 
heartily as you condemn them. We have every possible desire to see 
the men who really have a stake in the country, who have interests 
there, who belong there, and who are heartily for the Union, take the 
control of the southern State governments, if they have not already 
done so. 

We wish as a nation, if possible, to have nothing to do with them 
outside of their Federal relations; and only one thing has led even 
to the moral interference which is heard from this side upon the floor 
of this House. That is, that you give us no assurance of repose in 
respect to your observance of the constitutional amendments. The 
National Government has taken its hands off as far as practicable. 
We desire to leave elections free and to leave you exempt from inter- 
ference on this floor, or by the Executive ; but then comes up to u» 



17 

suddenly a great cry from the neighbors and families of murdered 
black or murdered white republicans, shocking the entire sentiment 
of the North once more, until we are led to believe you do not intend 
to observe in good faith the constitutional amendments and rights of 
citizens. 

Here is precisely our trouble. We have the power to enforce those 
amendments by the Constitution itself. We wish not to have it to 
do, but you will not enforce them yourselves. You say these out- 
breaks and massacres are simply the demonstrations of the bad por- 
tion of your population. That may be true, but what troubles us is 
that while the bad organize to commit wrongs and outrages the good 
have no counter-organization to protect victims against wrong. They 
accept its fruits. Your society as a society does not organize to sup- 
press them ; you do not bring the perpetrators to punishment ; you 
do not bring your moral influence at home to suppress them. All 
these things lead us to believe it is not yet safe to intrust your 
candidate with the administration of the amendments to the Consti- 
tution or with the protection of the liberties and the rights of citizens 
under them. Mr. Speaker, it is certain that these violations of life, 
of liberty, and of right have been frequent, that these crimes are per- 
petually repeated ; and I say in all candor that the only cause why 
we insist upon the whole power of legislation under those amend- 
ments and demand an Executive who believes in them is because 
the occasion for enforcing them is perpetually presented to us. 

I know the northern people feel that the greatest boon which can 
be given to them in this relation, the greatest demand we present on 
this side of the House, is simply that every man who by the Consti- 
tution is secured in his rights and is authorized to vote shall be per- 
mitted to speak, to work, and to vote without intimidation and 
without doing it at the peril of his life. When that day shall come 
we have done with all protective interference in elections in the 
Southern States and the Union will be really restored. 

The North looks with hope to the old whig element in the South, 
which did not originally advocate secession doctrines or accept the 
resolutions of '98, to return to its prominence in political affairs as 
an organization for the maintenance of the Constitution and the 
Union, and with a following of all voters who ask their constitutional 
rights only. I venture further to say that when that old Union-lov- 
ing element shall declare itself the protector of the rights of all men, 
white and black, under the amended Constitution, it will be recog- 
nized in its relations to the Federal Government as fully as it ever 
was before the war ; for that is all that republicanism demands. It 
is to secure such results and the restoration of an era of good feeling 
that we earnestly advocate the election of Governor Hayes. 

Here, then, without detaining the House longer, are the views 
which I present at this late period of the session in reply to the ex- 
pressed hope of the gentleman from Pennsylvania for the election of 
his candidate for President of the United States. I do not share his 
aspirations. I do not recognize them as justified either by the con- 
dition of the country or by the interests of the Union, of the Con- 
stitution, or of reform, nor by the record his candidate has made. 

Note. — Mr. Hewitt, of New York, having inserted in the Record, as a note 
to his speech, an article never read nor alluded to in the debate, nor shown to me, 
although supposed to contradict my statements, it only remains to me to speak of 
it in a like note. 

The certificate of Mr. Marble, like the certificate of Mr. Hewitt, to Mr. Tilden's 
loyalty, is simply the partisan's declaration of his private recollections, and both 

2kn 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



'■'IILiM 
I 



18 

0"013 7Q9 604 7 

involve the color of their own opinions as to what constituted umouisui m icuu auu 
1864. As I understand Mr. Marble's only quotation from Mr. Tilden's language- 
all the rest being a general affirmation of political good character, without produc- 
tion of evidence furnished l>v Mr. Tilden— this only quotation is made from a 
' ' manuscript'' which I do not understand Mr. Marble to certify was ever published 
over Mr. Tilden's signature. 

So far as this certificate is concerned it would only prove a facing two ways by Mr. 
Tilden. Certain it is that he wrote the public letter to Mr. Kent which I read from, 
and which is a secession letter in its doctrines ; certain it is that he belonged to 
that copperhead society for the diffusion of political knowledge in 1863 ; certain it 
is that he was a member of the anti-war convention at Chicago which nominated 
McClellan, and that he. served with Vallandigham on the platform committee ; cer- 
tain it is that he did not oppose nor dissent from the peace resolution openly in the 
convention, where he ought to have done it. These things are certain, and are not 
denied by Mr. Marble nor by Mr. Hewitt ; certain it is that Mr. Tilden did not 
publicly "repudiate the election frauds of 1868 perpetrated under color of his name, 
nor make a single effort to punish the criminals who were on the same committee 
with him for their alleged forgery of his name and their consequent frauds. 

These things I charged, and" these things Mr. Marble does not deny. Now when 
I make charges resting on a public record in part, like the Kent letter, and the or- 
ganization of the copperhead society in February, 1863, and in part on the want of 
a good public record for the Union, it is no sufficient answer to tell me of individ- 
ual instances resting in private knowledge, and which made no record committing 
Mv Tilden openly and publicly to the support of the Union cause and Govern- 
ment. He may have attended meetings, but also have carefully kept his name 
from papers and speeches committing himself to our cause. He may have sent 
private messages of advice, but carefully kept them from public knowledge till 
the Union cause had won. It was the public record I demanded, and Mr. Hewitt 
uow alleges private knowledge of individuals, revived as twelve-year-old recollec- 
tions from the willing memories of his partisans. It utterly fails to meet the issue 
presented by me. 



L1BRA RY OF CONGBEf 



i Hill Bill i" 1 



013 789 604 7 



penm&life* 

pH8.5 



